Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Musings on Hay

I'm
off to the Tuesday Northampton Farmers Market to sell our lamb meat
this afternoon in the sweltering heat. The Farmer is in haying mode
doing his first cutting of the fields he mows. It is a massive job and very time consuming. Because it is me there
at the market and not him, everyone is curious where he is. I tell them
he is "haying" and almost every single person looks at me with a quizzical
expression. I ask them if they know what that is and of course, most
don't. I explain that if you raise grass fed animals, what do you think
they eat in the winter? Grass. I get the funniest responses from people.
Farmers market shoppers have many of the buzz words down - grass fed,
local, sustainably grown..... but most of them don't know what anyone of
them mean. They are clueless as to what really goes into a grass fed
animal product.

I don't fault any of them for it. If they are interested, I will explain more. In actuality, most of them don't care. Like my sister says, "I just want to buy it, know I can cook it tonight, and then hope it is good." Because I am so darn involved in all this farming biz I find it all somewhat amusing.

Anyway, the other morning on the way to move sheep, I stopped at a field before the rain came and snapped these photos of some wildflowers. The flowers will all be mown in a week or so and be bundled up into haybales. I suppose that is a marketing opportunity - oh yes, our sheep eat wildflowers. Must think about that one!

How poignant. Isn't it wild how out-of-touch people are with respect to nature/food? I'm an urban gardener, and every time I tell someone I grew my garden from seed, they have this bewildered, borderline shocked look on their face. SEED? You can grow things from SEED? But that's not the sad part - the sad part is what you said - most of them don't care. Just gotta shrug and carry on. :)

Need to tell your customers that the wildflowers make the meat taste AMAZING! We were joking this weekend that we should plant rosemary in our paddocks so the consumers can have lamb with rosemary.....

About Me

I am an author and artist specializing in surface design including the disciplines of ceramics, textiles, needlework, knitwear, stitchery, and interior design. The thread that holds my work together is color and pattern. I live in western Massachusetts, USA in a 1751 farmhouse with my husband Mark and daughter Julia on a farm along with over 250 sheep, chickens, cats and dogs.

Copyright Kristin Nicholas 2006 - 2019

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